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Category Archives: Tips & Tricks

What’s My CD-R King Router Configuration?

It was two months ago when I made a post on how to setup a home wireless network using the CD-R King LP-8186 Wireless Router. Since then, I had received  numerous email messages inquiring on how to go about the configuration. The answer is pretty much easy: I just followed what was instructed by CD-R King (found inside the box/package) — that’s it.

Some people probably want a better idea, for when the O2 line is all set up and they’re itching to establish a sound wireless network at home. Now, for those who wants a clearer visual of my settings, here it goes:

System
Uptime 0day:1h:57m:57s
Firmware Version v1.5a
Wireless Configuration
Mode AP
Band 2.4 GHz (B+G)
SSID 
REYESHOME
Channel Number 1
Encryption WPA
BSSID 00:xx:xx:xx:xx:d1
Associated Clients 1
TCP/IP Configuration
Attain IP Protocol Fixed IP
IP Address 192.168.1.254
Subnet Mask 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway 192.168.1.254
DHCP Server Enabled
MAC Address 00:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
WAN Configuration
Attain IP Protocol DHCP
IP Address 192.168.255.240
Subnet Mask 255.255.224.0
Default Gateway 192.168.224.1
MAC Address 00:xx:xx:xx:xx:79

If you were helped of this post, your “Thank you!” is accepted, but your PayPal donation is better.

Setup a Home Network for Less than 500 Pesos

An experiment if I can setup a home network for less than PHP500 proved to be a success. I just needed to shell out around PHP300 and some minutes falling in line, and wallah! I can surf the net wirelessly thru my HP Mini 2133 anywhere within the range of our Home Network.

Here’s how I did it:

  1. Go to the nearest CDR King branch and buy a Bluetooth Dongle. I went to CDR King Park Square earlier today, and was able to get the smallest bluetooth dongle (the size of a USB stick cap) at PHP300.
  2. Head back home, attach the USB Bluetooth Dongle to your Desktop PC (mine is running Windows XP) and install the drivers.
  3. In your Desktop PC, open your Network Connections and open the Properties for your Internet Connection, or simply double-click on the Network icon from your Task Bar.
  4. Click on the Advanced tab of your Local Area Connection Properties, and make sure that the Internet Connection Sharing checkboxes are ticked. Click on OK and close the Properties window.
  5. Open a Command Prompt window (the shortcut is by Running the CMD command at the Start Menu). Check on what is the IP address of your bluetooth network by executing the IPCONFIG /ALL command. Take note of this IP address.
  6. Now, fireup your bluetooth enabled device, say a laptop. Connect to your PC using the bluetooth connection. In my HP Mini, I simply right-click on the Bluetooth icon from the Task Bar of Windows Vista, and click onJoin a Personal Area Network. Now you are connected to your Desktop PC.
  7. To verify that your are indeed connected to your Desktop PC, execute a PING of the IP address that you had seen earlier. If you will encounter a “Request time out” error, it simply means that your laptop is not able to connect to your desktop.
  8. On your laptop, launch the Connection Properties and supply an IP address for your mobile machine. This IP address must be different to the one that we had seen from our desktop.
  9. The IP address that you got from your desktop PC will be the Gateway in your mobile device or laptop’s Connection Properties.
  10. Now, launch your favorite internet browser and you should be able to surf from your mobile device or laptop, utilizing the connection from your desktop PC.

If you were helped of this post, your “Thank you!” is accepted, but your PayPal donation is better.

How to Download MP3 from Esnips.com?

Esnips.com is a social sharing website that allows users to share content, promote and sell creations, and form social niche communities around their specific areas of interests. This is also my favorite website when I am looking for music files, also known as MP3 files.

Type a title of a song in Esnips.com and you will find tons of versions of the same song, in different formats. Clicking on a link will load the Flash-based media player of the website. Now, if you want to download a copy of the file, you can, but your will be needing iMesh.

Now, here’s a technique that I am using to download the MP3 files, without having to use (and install) iMesh:

  1. Let’s say, the URL of the song I wish to download is
    http://www.esnips.com/doc/a56a0906-0f7f-4e6a-a241-1f3cdfaf7cb1/kundiman_ni_paraluman
  2. Change the word ‘doc’ in the URL to ‘nsdoc‘.
  3. Replace the song title or name with /ts_id/1205795172796/ns_flash/file88.mp3, in my example URL, I will have to remove ‘kundiman_ni_paraluman‘ and replace it with ‘/ts_id/1205795172796/ns_flash/file88.mp3′
  4. Hit the {Enter} key, and you will be prompted to save the MP3 file. That easy.

If you were helped of this post, your “Thank you!” is accepted, but your PayPal donation is better.

Customize Your USB Storage Devices

myusbdriveicon.jpgI know you are tired of cleaning your portable hard drives and USB thumb drives from nasty worms and viruses that attach themselves via the AUTORUN.INF file. Now, here’s one way to combat worms and viruses from infecting your USB storage devices, and at the same time, provide customization to your portable disks.

1. Create your own AUTORUN.INF file. The autorun.inf file executes itself, by default, whenever a disk (CD-ROM, Flash Disk, Portable HDD, etc) is attached to your PC — if you disabled the Auto Play or Auto Run feature from your Operating System, this may be useless for you ;) You may use Notepad to create your own autorun.inf or for the hardcoders, launch your Command Prompt (for Windows users, go to Start > Run > type CMD and click on OK. At the command prompt, go to the drive letter of your USB device, say Drive E. Once you are there, execute the command EDIT AUTORUN.INF and the Windows Editor will fire up.

2. Type the following commands inside the AUTORUN.INF file:

[autorun]
icon = .\youriconfile

3. Change the “youriconfile” with the filename of the image that you wish to use as the icon for your USB Storage Device (in my case, I used my very own pic — love your own!). If you have an image that you wish to convert as an icon (.ICO) file, you may use the services of http://www.convertico.com — it converts any PNG file to an ICO file online, for free.

4. Save your AUTORUN.INF file and disconnect your USB Storage Device from your PC. Then after sometime, plug it back to your computer and you shall notice that your own icon is the one used for your USB Storage Device.

Now, how does this combat worms and viruses from infecting your USB Storage Device? If you already have an AUTORUN.INF file, you deprive hackers and virus writers the privilege of writing their own AUTORUN.INF file to the root (base) of your USB device.

Internet Dial-up Using Smart 3G & LG KU250

lg-ku250.jpgYesterday, I dropped by Smart Wireless Center in SM Mall of Asia to renew my Smart Broadband contract (huh?! you may say, but Smart Bro is serving me good for my personal use). As a token of their gratitude, they gave me an LG KU250 Prepaid Phone Kit (costs around Php5,000 and it is 3G). I always wanted to try connecting to the internet via a PC/laptop and a mobile phone. I am NOT successful with GlobePH, so I wanted to try this time with Smart.

The Customer Service Agent at MOA gave me the dial-up number *99***1#, so I immediately created a dial-up connection with this number once I reached home. First try, nah! It didn’t worked. Called their Customer Service Hotline, and gave me a new dial-up number *99# — still does not worked. Then finally, a second call to their Hotline, the CS Agent told me that I need to install the LG PC Suite to use 3G dial-up.

So I tried to install the LG KU250 PC Suite using the mini-CD-ROM provided, but the next problem I encountered is that the LG USB Modem Driver provided is NOT Windows XP Certified — it won’t install on my PC (running Windows XP 2nd Edition with SP3). Surfed the internet and landed on a possible solution. Tried re-installing the USB Modem Driver, and wallah! It worked!

Now, here’s the settings in the LG PC Suite that worked my way connecting to the internet via 3G:

lgku250-smart-3g-dial-up.jpg

My Windows XP Internet Connection status tells me that I have a 115.2Kbps connection, but speedtest.net reached somewhere between 250Kbps to 350Kbps.

Is Domain Cloaking Possible with cPanel?

By default, cPanel does not have a built-in function or tool that will let you cloak a domain name or website. But first, what is domain name cloaking?

Let’s say, you bought a domain name: juandelacruz.com and you want users to see your Friendster (or Multiply) profile site when they point their web browsers to your domain. One option you have is to use cPanel’s built-in Redirects tool. But what’s the down side? When people point their web browsers to http://www.juandelacruz.com, they shall be redirected to something like http://www.friendster.com/juandelacruz or http://juandelacruz.multiply.com — with the redirected URL shown on the web browser’s address bar. If you do not want this to happen, a work-around is to cloak your domain name.

Basically, the trick behind cloaking is to create a framed webpage (covering the entire width of the user’s web browser) that bears the redirected website. If you’re just too busy to study the FRAMES in HTML, you may want to use http://script-smart.com/resources/hide-affiliate-link/online-link-cloaker.php instead.

Speed Up Windows XP A Little Bit

Had you ever experienced opening a folder in Windows XP and it takes around 30 seconds to a minute (or even more) before you can actually see the files & folders in it? Mind you, I had experienced this even if my machine is sporting around 1GB of RAM.

As you had guessed, the culprit is Windows XP’s default settings. You see, Windows XP will try to automatically locate network drives, folders, and printers by default. This happens every time you open a folder in Windows XP. To avoid the lookups, go to My Computer. Click on Tools > Folder Options. In the Folder Options, click on the View tab and uncheck the option “Automatically search for network folders and printers.”

This should make your folder browsing a little bit faster (even if you just have 256MB of RAM).

Password Generator in Windows XP


Did you know that there is a hidden password generator in Windows XP for your Administrator user account? Launch the Command Prompt (click on Start > Run… and type “cmd” without the quotes). Then type “net user administrator /random” (withou
t the quotes, again). This command will generate a strong Windows XP Administrator Password.

Stop AutoPlay with TweakUI

Most of the trojans, worms, and “viruses” that infects our portable devices when plugged in to PCs at the Multimedia Labs are triggered by allowing AutoPlay to run when we hook our techie stuff at the USB ports. Now, one way to avert the spread or even activation of these menaces is by turning AutoPlay off. How?

Download TweakUI from http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx. Once installed, you will see under the My Computer list in it AutoPlay. Uncheck all of the drives. This will prevent AutoPlay from being executed when you plug a USB device, say a flashdisk or portable harddisk in to your PC.

Another option is to hold the {Shift} down while plugging-in your USB device. But this may sometimes be difficult, as there are times when you need two (02) hands to plug your devices at the USB port.

Multiple Logins in Yahoo!Messenger

Foreword: I am sure a lot will be happy with this tip (especially my students then and now).

Ever wanted to use two (or even more) Yahoo!Messenger IDs at the same time? With the current setup of your Y!M, it is simply impossible. Now, with having to install an add-on or third-party software, you may actually login to multiple Y!M IDs at the same time:

1. Go to the Start Menu and click on Run…
2. Type regedit {Enter} and the Windows Registry Editor will be activated.
3. Locate HKEY_CURRENT_USER >> Software >> Yahoo >> Pager >> Test
4. On the right pane of the Registry Editor, right-click and select New >> DWORD Value
5. Name the new value as Plural.
6. Double click Plural and enter the value 1. Close the Registry Editor.

Launch Yahoo!Messenger, login to your account. If you want to login with another Y!M account, simply launch another instance of Y!M.

The invention of pda has provided more fun for their customers. If you want to have fun during travel you can use pda accessories. However to protect it from dust you should buy pda cases.